DB7 turns 25
FHC, Volante and V12 driven and rated
Aword to the wise – don’t mention such hackneyed clichés as ‘Jag in drag’, ‘Mazda taillights’ or ‘Ford switchgear’ if you’re within punching distance of an Aston DB7 fan. Yes, there is parts-sharing under that glamour-puss body, but that’s hardly surprising, given the prevailing economic conditions of the early 1990s. That Aston Martin managed to deliver the car to its 1993 Geneva Motor Show debut after just two years of development work – and having spent a relatively piffling $30m on it – is testament to how necessity really is the mother of invention.
And what an invention it was. ‘Timely’ doesn’t even begin to describe the DB7’s arrival because Aston Martin’s future was looking decidedly shaky by the late 1980s. The mighty Virage would soldier on until 2000, but it was big, heavy and fearsomely expensive. If Aston was to see in the Millennium, it needed something more affordably mass market, but still quintessentially ‘Aston’ – a car to tempt buyers away from a top-end Mercedes-Benz SL or BMW 8 Series.
The DB7 actually rose out of the ashes of a stillborn Jaguar proposal called Project XX, which in turn rose out of the even colder ashes of a
proposed XJS replacement, dubbed XJ41 ‘F-Type’. Jaguar’s new owner, Ford, may have canned Project XX – the brainchild of TWR frontman, Tom Walkinshaw and designer, Ian Callum – but Aston Martin’s chairman, Walter Hayes, reckoned it had the potential to become the ‘cheap’ car he was looking for and asked Walkinshaw and Callum to revisit it.
The result was Project NPX – which became the DB7 in 1994 – engineered by Jaguar- Sport at the newlyformed (with TWR) Aston Martin HQ in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, with production planned for TWR’s old Jaguar XJ220 plant at Bloxham.
Power came from a 3.2-litre straightsix using a Jaguar AJ6 block, but a bespoke aluminium cylinder head, four valves per cylinder and twin chain-driven overhead camshafts. It was boosted by a water-cooled Eaton M90 supercharger, with the wick turned up to 14psi – 40 per cent more than the contemporary Jaguar XJR.
Most of the body was zinc-coated steel – not the usual aluminium – but the bonnet, front wings and bumper, sills and bootlid were made from a lightweight in-house composite and it sat on a Jaguar XJS-derived floorpan using modified XJS wishbone suspension.
The only interior options concerned the stereo and transmission. Everything else was standard and swathed in leather and wood, and if it moved, chances are it did so electrically. The asking price was an eyebrow-raisingly affordable (for an Aston, at least) £80,000 – almost £50,000 less than a Virage.
Park an i6 – as the supercharged six-pot version is called – alongside a Vantage ( launched in 1999), and you need to plumb your inner anorak very deeply indeed to spot the differences. The discreet ‘ Vantage’ rear badge kind of gives the game away, but the biggest clues are the new combined front indicator/driving light assemblies and bigger grille and wheels.
The biggest difference, of course, concerns what lies beneath their respective bonnets…
FORWARD CHARGE
Climbing into ‘our’ i6 Volante is very much like going back to the 1990s. The high-set seats and close proximity of the windscreen header rail mean that taller drivers must recline the backrest more than they normally would and glimpsing the warning lights is often more miss than hit.
The drone from the straight-six is rather anodyne at pottering speeds and burying the throttle produces what CAR magazine’s December 1994 road test described as ‘a guttural roar that sounds like a Boeing 747 at take-off’. If that doesn’t sound especially inspiring, the manner in which it catapults towards the horizon definitely is. Your neck muscles are safe, but the relentlessly gathering momentum puts you in mind – ironically enough – of a Jaguar XJS V12. It’s eye-widening stuff.
Look elsewhere if you crave pinsharp steering and a washboard ride; this is a GT first and foremost. As such, there’s a bit of float – though not as much scuttle shake as you might imagine – and the pay-off is a beautifully serene ride. It’s utterly
effortless – just stick it into Drive and use your right foot to decide how much excitement you want. You really do get the sense that few other Nineties GTs would be quite so predisposed to trans-continental cruising.
TWICE AS NICE
The Vantage is a very different animal. Harder-core. Angrier. Press the big red starter button on the centre console and the starter whinnies for a couple of seconds before a basso profondo rumble takes centre stage. Touch the throttle and you’re off, no questions asked, no quarter given. Mastering the Vantage’s go-big-or-go-home attitude takes a bit of familiarisation, but it’s a devastatingly effective missile once you do.
The engine – developed by Ford’s Research and Vehicle Technology Group and assembled by Cosworth Technology (which supplied F1 engine parts in period) is ballistic under full throttle; you’d better have a long, empty road ahead of you because you’ll be at the first corner before you can blink. The handling won’t disappoint when you get there, either; the steering is perhaps a little numb, but damping is impressive with no twitchy tramlining and body control is quite literally awe-inspiring. It is, in short, a proper sports car.
The temptation to redline the Vantage at any given opportunity is pretty much irresistible, but the i6’s more lolloping nature is friendlier, less frenetic, more everyday. Which is more your bag is obviously down to personal subjective preference, but to this writer, at least, an Aston should terrify, not pacify. It’s Vantage all the way.